Canadian Heritage Committee on Nov. 24th, 2011

[Anthony Sherwood]

It's a good point, Mr. Simms, but I prefer the national museum because it is permanent. A film is something that is hot for a few years and then it sits on a shelf and people forget about it. A museum is a lasting, standing monument that people can visit, that people can take pride in, that all Canadians can take pride in.

Across the United States, 75 museums are devoted to African American history. There's a huge African American museum being built in Washington at the cost of $500 million. Are our heroes any less? Are the contributions that African Canadians made to this country any less? Sure, our numbers are smaller than the United States. But the oppression we underwent and survived, the contributions we made in building and developing this country are just as fantastic. That's why I would prefer to see a museum as opposed to a film, even though I'm in the film business, because of the longevity of the testament.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Moore]

You have 30 seconds, Mr. Simms.

[Scott Simms, Liberal, Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL]

It's been a pleasure.

[Anthony Sherwood]

Likewise.

[Scott Simms, Liberal, Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL]

It's been a pleasure, and you're a tremendous filmmaker and you're a tremendous writer, and your words are very good. I wish you all the best.

[Rosemary Sadlier]

Thank you for your question, and just to finish the 10 seconds of your response here—

[Scott Simms, Liberal, Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL]

God love you, thank you.

[Rosemary Sadlier]

God love us.

I appreciate your question, and I think money is a factor. To say that it isn't would be unfair and untrue.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Moore]

Thank you.

Mr. Young, are you...?

[Terence Young, Conservative, Oakville, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you for coming today. It is very interesting to me.

I want to pursue what Mr. Simms was talking about a little bit. I remember in the fifties—I had four brothers—we used to want to stay home from church Sunday night, even though we lived on church property. My dad was a minister. We wanted to watch Walt Disney. Walt Disney was fascinating because they made history come alive. Here we were, little Canadian kids, sending away for Davy Crockett hats. There was stuff on Paul Bunyan. They romanticized it. They were very good at telling these stories and building them in many cases to things...exaggerating them, we should say, but romanticizing their history.

Thank you for bringing up the story of William Peyton Hubbard. I love the story. I grew up in Toronto. It's a story that cries out to be told. His father was an escaped refugee slave from Virginia. There's a story there. He met future Father of Confederation George Brown and pulled him out of the Don River, became his driver, and they became good friends. He was re-elected 13 times and became acting mayor. The only time he lost was because he introduced the Toronto Hydro Electric Commission. That's a story in itself. He lived in the thirties. In the thirties, the reporters used to come around and see him every year. His nickname was Old Cicero because he was such a brilliant speaker. This isn't just a movie; it's a TV series. It would make a great TV series. I would love to see it. It might not be suitable for your company, but it should be told in film.

I want to ask you—maybe I could start with Mr. Sherwood—what ideas you have for making Canadian history live and telling Canadian stories on the stage, in film, TV, and even in opera. There's an opera commissioned in 2000 called the Iron Road, which is about how the Canadian railroad was built and how the Chinese contributed and suffered. How can we tell these stories and make it interesting? Teenagers are cynical. You take them into a history class and say, “Today is politically correct history day”, and they won't listen. But if you tell the story dynamically and tell the drama, they will listen, and even go to theatres and pay for it.

What ideas do you have for telling these stories leading up to 2017?

[Anthony Sherwood]

There are a number of ways...my company is involved in a number of ways. We produced a documentary film 10 years ago that was broadcast on CBC nationally called Honour Before Glory, which was the story of the No. 2 Construction Battalion, Canada's all-black unit. It has received a number of national and international awards, and that documentary was widely distributed across Canada, in Canadian schools, universities, libraries, and even in the United States. My company has been involved in terms of telling these stories for a while.

The 60-second and 30-second promotional videos I produce for Citizenship and Immigration Canada are online. The Canadian government has to take an active role in terms of advertising and promoting projects once they've committed to producing them. Nobody will know they exist online if you don't do an active advertising promotional campaign.

My company is also involved in terms of telling these African Canadian stories on stage and bringing them into the schools. We did a play about William Hall, the first Canadian sailor and the first black person to receive the Victoria Cross in 1859. That play was produced, distributed, and performed in schools across Toronto, in Halifax, and in Ottawa. We took the play to Ireland as well.

Last year, we did a play about Mary Ann Shadd, the first black woman to publish a newspaper in North America and the first teacher to open an integrated school in Canada. That play was performed in Toronto schools. This year we're doing a play for Black History Month that will be widely presented in schools across Canada on Richard Pierpoint and the Company of Coloured Men, which was formed during the War of 1812. This project is a special commemoration project for the 200th anniversary of the War of 1812.

Those are all of the things we are doing.

[Terence Young, Conservative, Oakville, ON]

These are great projects. Am I right that you would conclude we should be doing more of that leading up to 2017, or more things like that?

[Anthony Sherwood]

Absolutely. How are Canadians going to know? When you read stories about William Hubbard, as a Canadian, regardless of where your background is, you are fascinated because you admire this person because of the obstacles they overcame. You admire the qualities of this individual.

[Terence Young, Conservative, Oakville, ON]

Also, he was elected in the wealthiest part of Toronto, while in the United States they were preparing for a civil war. As well, he was able to become a baker, and he was an inventor. But he was allowed into the Toronto school system, whereas all across North America they were all segregated. That's a Canadian story, and really, a romantic Canadian story. Canadians can say, gee, I guess we were pretty good even way back then, or at least we weren't as bad as the others.

[Anthony Sherwood]

You see, these are all the things that my company...but I am only one person. My company is only one company, and I can't do it all.

[Terence Young, Conservative, Oakville, ON]

What roles should the National Film Board and CBC play heading up to 2017 in telling these stories? They are national institutions that receive federal money.

[Anthony Sherwood]

Absolutely, it's an excellent point. They all have diversity programs to bring in new diversity filmmakers, but more needs to be done. They have to take an active stance in terms of reaching out to the African Canadian filmmaking community, and there's a very strong, active, and talented filmmaking community, certainly within Toronto and Halifax. Approach them about doing it. We have international award-winning directors who unfortunately have moved on to the United States for the bigger buck. But they're here in this country, and they have to take advantage of their talents.

[Terence Young, Conservative, Oakville, ON]

We've been talking about history, which is going to be key, and we've heard from other witnesses that we should celebrate our history, but in 2017 we also want to look forward. I really like your idea about a theme: We are one. What should we be doing leading up to 2017 to tell the world about, or identify for ourselves, where Canada is heading? Have you got any thoughts on that?

[Anthony Sherwood]

I'll let Rosemary answer that.

[Rosemary Sadlier]

My sense is that we're moving from a multicultural reality to a multicultural future. I think we have failed to recognize and underscore the reality that we had a multicultural beginning. I think we need to do that, or we can't move on to a multicultural future. That's in terms of how it's tangible and concrete, and also in terms of ideology.

That's it, multicultural past to a multicultural future.

[Terence Young, Conservative, Oakville, ON]

We are one—that's a great idea for a theme. Thank you.

Thank you, Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Moore]

Thank you, Mr. Young.

Please go ahead, Mr. Cash.

[Andrew Cash, NDP, Davenport, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to both of you for being here today.

As someone who was born, raised, and spent my whole life in Toronto, I'm honoured to be listening to you today, Ms. Sadlier, because I've seen the evolution and the growth in the consciousness, not just among African Canadians in the city of Toronto but the entire city, to the history of African Canadians. You and all of your partners—artists, civil society, groups that have spent countless hours, and years in fact, and withstood the barrage of media criticism—should be commended as you have persevered. So thank you so much for that.

Campaign 2000 just released their 2011 report card. Campaign 2000 was a response to an initiative in Parliament in 1989 to end child poverty by the year 2000. I bring it up because we're talking about this museum. It's clear that poverty in Canada—and we can talk about Toronto maybe even more specifically—is racialized. We have a city where 50% of the residents of Toronto were not born in Toronto. I remember growing up in Scarborough, and I have to tell you, I remember the day the first African Canadian walked into my classroom. Today, if you take the Finch bus through Scarborough, through Etobicoke, just about every single person on that bus is from the multi-ethnic, multi-national, multi-faith African Canadian community. By and large, they are living in poverty.

If we're going to do some 2017, 150th birthday legacy project that does not address this essential core issue of the future—and we've got over 600,000 children living in poverty—then we've missed a huge opportunity. So I want both of you to speak to the issue of poverty among racialized communities, and the issue of the multi-ethnic African Canadian community. We have new African Canadians in our country now. We have a large Haitian community. We have a growing Ethiopian-Eritrean community in Toronto.

It's a twofold question. How would a museum connect to these new communities? But more importantly, in my view, how would a museum help to push the marker forward in the pursuit of eliminating poverty among children?

[Rosemary Sadlier]

I think, number one, we are not going to eradicate poverty. That is just not going to happen anytime soon, no matter what the initiatives are or whether they are towards 2017 or not.

But the point you make, which I think the museum speaks to—I love cannons—is that when you have, as you so rightly point out, a racialized level of poverty, that level of poverty is also reflexive and connected to how people view those people.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Moore]

Excuse me, Ms. Sadlier.

We have a point of order here.

Mr. Calandra.